Europe's business movers and shakers are embracing social media in a big way, according to a new survey by CNBC titled "Europe's Mobile Elite 2012." In the CNBC survey 69% of European execs agreed
that "it's important for businesses to integrate social media into marketing and business plans," and 87% reported being a member of at least one social network -- compared to 74% in 2011 and 60% in
2010. ...Read the whole story

Some 43% of retailers said they will raise online marketing budgets -- investing in either mobile, social or email marketing channels during the holiday season, according to a new study analyzing expectation of holiday advertising and sales. ...Read the whole story

Sir Richard's Condoms has launched what it dubs a non-procreators' holiday with a new online and social media campaign via advertising agency TDA_Boulder that might be thought of as a kind of anti-Mother's Day pitch. ...Read the whole story

The company, which has backed the marathon for 14 years, is partnering with electro-funk duo Chromeo on a marathon music track with a theme around "Stop at Never." The music will include ambient noises of New York as they might be experienced by marathon runners. ...Read the whole story

Around The Net

Asian markets top a new global social engagement league table that measures how often and how much consumers use social media platforms. The Social Engagement Benchmark fromGlobalWebIndex reveals that consumers in fast-growing economies are more likely to use a social network or a microblog, upload a photo or video or review a product or brand than consumers in more mature countries. ...Read the whole story

Facebook brand engagement has risen 896% on a year-over-year basis, according to a new advertising study from Adobe. The study said the uptick is consequent to Facebook's new Timeline feature. Another report released earlier this year found that the feature garnered positive results for small to medium-sized brand pages. About a quarter of Facebook engagement came from mobile users. Mobile growth on Facebook engagement also came with increased mobile marketing gains overall. ...Read the whole story

In an address to London School of Economics on the issue of social media, Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC responded to an audience member who asked: "Is it an offence to retweet something grossly offensive?" The DPP replied: "You retweet, you commit an offence under the Act." The offence falls under Section 127 of the Communications Act, which outlaws sending a tweet that is "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character". ...Read the whole story

A survey by IBM and Oxford University about how organizations are using Big Data revealed that transactions are the most common source of data, used by 88% of respondents. The next most popular source is log data (73%), followed by events (59%) and then email (57%). Only 43% are using social media as a source of data. ...Read the whole story

The majority of Twitter and Facebook users -- 83% and 71%, respectively -- expect a response from a brand within the same day of posting. Some 71% of consumers who experience a quick and effective response ...More

TV and digital video sway closer to each other each day. As Nielsen's online campaign ratings move deeper to becoming the currency for cross-platform measurement and agencies like GroupM push them along , there are other ...More